Rex

You are an oxymoron, a bully and a coward both. You are the unabashed hypocrite, saying one thing, meaning another, and expecting to be understood. You are the cad who seeks to justify the absence of devotion in the name of love. You live on the kindness of others and show none in return. You are the pauper king, the tragic clown, the devil in paradise. You admire the best and inspire the worst. You're a friend who's not.

I had a dog once. Couldn't get rid of him. He always bit me when I fed him. Wouldn't come out from under the bed. Loved to eat vomit. He even ate shit, which was easier to come by, every time he got the chance. As much as I can love a dog, this one was tough. Never came to me when I called, always pissed on the rug, smelled foul, hated water.

He got the mange. His fur was falling out in clumps. He wouldn't let me near him with the medicine. And he kept trying to mount all the other dogs whenever we went out for a walk. His condition seemed to give him a constant hard on. The other dogs would run and their owners scream as my mangy, shit-smelling companion tried to fuck them from behind.

My dog was starting to reflect on me. Everybody told me, get rid of the dog. But I somehow felt honor bound to keep him. Should a man stick by his dog? Is it a question of honor? Or is honor just a consideration between men? In any case, the dog and I parted company.

But I didn't have the heart to kill the dog. I just turned him out. I eventually saw the cruelty in that, because a dead dog is better than a mangy one without a master. So, I called him home. This was the beginning of a terrible pattern. In, out, in, out. The poor dog didn't know if it was coming or going.

Now, I live in a small town. Everybody's got a dog, and everybody's an expert. Some said to call the vet, others said to do it myself. But, I don't own a gun. So what could I do? Write my dog a letter? I hated the idea of calling the vet. I hate getting on the phone with somebody to talk about a sick dog and how to get rid of it. Setting a date seemed impossible. I was stuck, so I left town.

People said that was the cruelest thing I could do. Face the dog, they said. Pet it and love it. Kiss it behind its ear and feed it steak. And then, when it's in its ecstasy, blow its head off.

I tried to imagine loving my dog, kissing the hairy scabs behind its reeking ears. I thought I could actually smell it, when I realized that the dog had followed me to my new town. So I threw him a steak and borrowed a gun. But this was one smart dog. He didn't touch the steak. I never fired a shot.

I stopped feeding him, stopped leaving food outside my door, looking for him outside the window. He came anyway. I began to feel that he would outlive me. And then, suddenly, he disappeared.

I heard that an old lady across Broad St. was feeding him. A big bowl of kibbles twice a day. They said that she loved him and that she even let him sleep in her bed, though I found that hard to believe.

When I finally saw my dog again, he looked great. Coat, eyes, and teeth all shining. I saw him first at a distance, frolicking. When he spotted me he came close and sniffed my hand. He had a new collar. His nose was cold and wet. His breath was sweet. I was glad to see him. And then, a horrible thing happened. When I turned to go, he followed me home.

What do you expect? people said, he's your dog. But I'm no good for him, I said. He doesn't know any better, they answered, he's a dog. I did try to find the lady who loved him, but I heard that she left town, her heart broken.

When my dog finally died, he was in the hands of the authorities. They took him away when he started foaming at the mouth. It took them forever to catch him but in the end, he just keeled over. He caught me with a baleful eye as they loaded him into the back of a van. That was the last time I saw him. But sometimes, just as I'm sitting down to dinner, I seem to hear a faint scratching at the door. I want to get up, to peek outside.

Love Story

My lady friend once said: there are takers and there are givers, and you don’t really get to choose which one you turn out to be. Take me, for instance. I’d love to be a taker. I’m ready. Give me whatever is going around, please. I never thought for one minute I’d be the bank of first resort for so many people, including all these kids out back. And that’s nothing compared to my wife’s family. They’re from Naples, don’t forget, which is a town with one of the highest proportions of takers to givers anywhere on earth. The few givers that remain are being driven to penury, like a species on it’s way to extinction.

My lady friend has plenty of money, which she has no problem earning. But she doesn’t take money for granted. She just expects it, like people who expect clean air and make you put out your cigarette to get it. She’s one tough bitch, which is not to say she isn’t generous. She gives more to charity than you make. Every homeless knows her name, a true friend of Andrew Jackson, but that doesn’t mean she’s a soft touch. Just the opposite. Some people question her ability to see people as people. She seems to stare right through them, or else to look at them like specimens, more at the clothes than the face. But trust me, she sees everything there is to see, and she’s seen enough of your face.

I always call her when I’m in a crisis, but not because I’m expecting a shoulder to cry on. I call her because she has no time for that. I do not call for sympathy, but for the opposite of sympathy. I call her to prove to myself that I am a hard man. Of course, I wish I were a little harder around the middle. I’m talking more about my head, which is where most givers meet. They bang heads because they like it, and they admire that tendency in others.

I met my lady friend 40 years ago, which is quite a piece of change. We buried a lot of people since then, people we loved, and we watched everybody get old, including us, and there we are, alone on the dance floor with the music still on. Yet, I’m not sure she likes me. On the other hand, you could call it love and you wouldn’t be wrong.

She never met the spouse she liked. (Including her own. She did try, three times, but none took.) This is not to say she doesn’t like my wife. She might even like my wife more than she likes me. But between two people she is bound to choose one, as she has no interest in three-way relationships, which doesn’t mean sex. As far as I can tell, my lady friend never has sex, and never much liked it back when she was experimenting. This is one reason why my wife, despite my lady friend’s tendency to view my wife as a specimen, allows my devotion.

My first wife allowed the same. She didn’t like anybody, so it was all fine with her. I was the only one doing any liking, and in the beginning, I liked everybody. Of course I didn’t know what I’d end up giving. But my lady friend needs nothing. Being such a giver, she’s very low maintenance. When I buy her dinner it’s because she lets me, which is every single time. Sometimes I think it’s what holds us together, me buying dinner. It’s her way of saying: I love you. At least that’s what I’d like to think.

Schindler's List

Everybody cries during Schindler’s List. I cried in the first ten minutes. There was the world, beautifully rendered by Mr. Stephen Spielberg from my point of view - lamp light in a hotel room, a couple of ties, a passable watch, a silver band, a pile of cash - a lonesome stranger, a salesman. The next thing you know, he's in a room full of Nazis, knee deep in money but up to his neck in shit.

Schindler was a man capable of making promises, which is what the movie is all about. In his case, he keeps all his promises and ends up a hero. Regarding the movie playing in my head, I don’t know the ending yet. But I can tell you this about a room full of Nazis: don’t make any promises.

I would also point out that the loneliness he feels in his hotel room is never mitigated. I mean, whose would, considering the locale? But it’s also a lesson in the loneliness of the individual, like you, who has to face loneliness every day, even though you see all those people, like me. But what can you do, other than act like Oskar?

Patrimony

It is difficult to find a literal translation of my name, a charming aspect of many Italian surnames, like Mr. Tadpole or Ms. Courteous. My name is a word that wants to exist but does not. It’s just a name. If you have a name like mine, that’s about all you can say. When you think of me just think of Tom Jones.

My father’s mother was a DeSimone, which means what it says. After all, there are a lot of Simons out there, simple and otherwise, and many of them are Sicilian. They say that my grandmother was cheated out of her inheritance of a thousand acres near Selinunte, which the Persians called paradise, but who can believe it?

All I know for sure is that my grandmother was sent over here at 14 to marry my grandfather, whose first wife died in childbirth and who needed replacing. So they sent my grandmother. This seemed like a good idea to everybody involved, except my grandmother, poor thing, who had the misfortune of being lucky in land but not in love. She was certainly gotten rid of when they sent her to South Philadelphia, which was even more like Mars than it is now.

She told me that she held onto the title of her land until 1936, when she sold it to a cousin who showed up out of nowhere and offered her $400, which she promptly took, since she was now a widow herself, and with eight children - the original Octomom, only with no choice and one at a time.

She had a parchment with a lot of seals and crests, which was very beautiful and which she kept in a trunk under her bed, in one of the two rooms in which nine slept. But it didn’t mean anything to anybody except this cousin, who came over when they didn’t have enough to eat. And $400 was a lot. The title went back to Sicily, which might also have been Mars, and this cousin was never heard from again.

It was all hard to believe, since when I was told this story she was shelling peas – gold tooth, gray hair in a bun stuck with a needle, drooping lobes from earrings inserted at birth, Converse All Stars with holes cut for her bunions under a housedress like a tent and an apron around that. The peas she grew herself, in her enormous garden that was overflowing with vegetables, set by the big stone house where she lived with my aunt and uncle in 1963.

She shelled the peas with hands so knurled it was difficult to see how she did it. This was also true when she peeled an apple, sending one long tendril of peel to the table in seconds. It was hard to pay attention to anything else. And she told me using her English vocabulary of roughly 85 words, which represented about one word per year. All I could think at the time was that if her garden in Merion could deliver so much food, then she did the right thing to take the $400. There’s only so much you can do with zucchini.

Resignation

I saved a guy’s life. And I didn't do it by jumping in the water. I brought him from sickness to health and he never missed a paycheck - or a premium. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that if not for me, he would be dead.

He used to work here. He got sick. I pulled him out of hell – a hospital up in Manayunk, and got him into Penn. I even paid his carfare up to Sloan after I convinced the doctor to see him, who wasn’t looking for patients, believe me. I saw him through treatment and back behind a slicer, where I let him sleep for weeks. This guy was dying of the same disease that was killing my sister, and I was desperately trying to save her life. It wasn’t working. But for this guy, who got to tag along, it worked fine.

Two days after my sister’s funeral, I get a letter from this guy. The letter wasn’t addressed to me. It was addressed to my cousin, who handed it to me halfway up Mole Street with tears in his eyes. There was a list of cc’s that included my partner and my uncle. I’m so sorry, my cousin said. Just tell me what to do.

It was a long letter, and once I got the gist of it, it was hard to read, so I skimmed. He called me everything in the book – a liar, a thief, a hypocrite, a dissembler, a conspirator, you name it. Plus, there was no redeeming quality I didn’t lack. I had betrayed my family in every way, my recent agonies on their behalf not withstanding. I was a mentally disturbed sociopath who held everyone in contempt. He had proof.

He gave this letter to me at the wake, my cousin said. It made me afraid of him. Then it made me angry. Now, it makes me want to cry. I agreed it was heartbreaking, which we didn’t need.

People do the strangest things, especially when they face death. If this guy’s reaction wasn’t so disturbing, I might have been angry too. So I told my cousin not to do anything, since the only thing left was to make it worse. But it was impossible not to broach the subject with this guy, since he was still working here, cashing his paycheck out of the register. All I said was: I saw what you wrote. That was it. Then I accepted his resignation, which didn’t feel especially good, but wasn’t so bad.

The Art of Eating

My mother hates food, which is something I’ve said before. She thinks I want to blame her for everything, but the only thing she’s responsible for is this gut I’m sporting. Call it reactionary. And you should see my brother, poor thing. It’s no reward for being her favorite.

My mother would have made an excellent purser, one more career denied. Our house was full of food, but we weren’t allowed to eat it. For some reason, crackers went into the basement instead of the cupboard, where they adopted some funny tastes down there in the dark. Fresh meat went into the freezer, from which a deeply frozen piece of something else was extracted, defrosted, and eaten so there was room for the fresh piece, which would emerge sometime in the future, like a time capsule of what was being eaten way back when.

I was sitting at her table and asked for mayonnaise. Luckily, I looked at the date, which began with 19. I pointed out who was president before spreading it further. I just opened it, she answered. The dates are there for a reason, I said. This condiment was made before the war on terror. They’re lying, she answered. They always lie. They just put those dates on there so you’ll buy more mayonnaise.

My wife loves food and makes her own mayo, but she’s like a broomstick, which in Italy is no compliment. But she never thinks about food unless she’s hungry, which isn’t true for Americans, who think about food all the time. I saw a German mother confront two American kids in a pool at a hotel where I stay, which is what I get for being there in August. The kids were standing in the water, eating ice cream. The German lady was furious. Why are you eating in the pool? she demanded. Because we’re hungry, they answered. The German lady was livid. How can you possibly be hungry? Look at you, she said. This brought over the American mother, no small specimen herself, who was ready with an explanation. They eat a lot, she said, even if they just ate.

This confirmed a theory for my wife, who contends that the reason we eat so much is because we’re never fed properly in the first place. We tend not to overeat but to dwell on it constantly, doling it out by the calorie, always wanting more. We simply don’t know how to eat, which art largely involves doing the opposite of what we do.

Italians skip breakfast, shop when they’re hungry, eat when they’re starving, gorge, feel sick, and sleep on a full stomach. Dinner is a form of punishment after eating so much at lunch, so they barely touch it. They make themselves disgusted with food, swearing off the stuff by the time they’re ready for bed, which usually involves some kind of purgative. I love a good bicarbonate of soda with Ferrarelle and fresh lemon. By lunchtime the next day, you’re ready to eat all over again.

Genius

I got a guy who’s a genius. Seriously. Why do you think I hired him? He’s crazy, that’s for sure. Maybe dangerous. But he’s so smart that he makes you think that you’re the one who’s crazy, which is what I love about him. I already fired him twice, but he’s still here.

He’s one step ahead of everybody else, which is his big problem. Take it easy is usually my advice after he fucks everything up by going too fast. How do you think you crash? A guy like that should go to sea.

At sea you sit around a lot and stare at the water. At some point, no matter how much you hate it, you love it. First of all, you have no choice. Second, it’s the closest to an afterlife you’ll ever know – everything and nothing. I loved it right away, since it’s better than any medication I’ve tried. It also helps that I can swim.

My son died at sea. He thought he knew more than he knew and it killed him. But I never blamed the sea. None of us did. It doesn’t take a genius - which my son happened to be. He could swim, too. But the sea doesn’t care. It will take whom it wants, or who gets too close. That’s why I like the flying bridge.

I used to work for a woman who called me a genius. She was really convinced. I later discovered that she said it about everybody who worked there. Still, we all liked it. As a management tool, it was very effective, which is not to say this guy isn’t a genius. Plus, I have to think of him that way because he expects it. I’m guessing that his parents praised the genius part but were in denial about the other issues.

Whenever he reaches an impasse, instead of stopping to think, he reminds himself that he’s a genius, and thinks up some very stupid shit, convinced it must be genius. Or he lets serendipity be his guide instead of reaching for his calculator. Then he gets stubborn about it. This is where he reaches a terminal impasse, which has resulted in too many employers for a genius his age.

The Neapolitan

Why choose one flavor when you can have three? Still, I’m not sure why they call vanilla, chocolate and strawberry a Neapolitan, because those people want it all – especially coffee. My father-in-law rarely eats ice cream and he never takes more than one flavor at a time. And he hates sandwiches. He won’t eat one. He’ll reduce it to its components, which is not to say he’s dainty. He drives his knife and fork like a Ferrari, and it’s a beautiful thing to see. He also loves to whistle Chopin, especially when we’re on our way to eat. The one thing I can say about his whistling is that he does it loud.

As a boy he saw his life completely destroyed, so his looking forward to lunch is informed with a knowledge you and I don’t possess – and it doesn’t include fast food. This guy has seen everything and he enjoys most of it, even a sandwich, as long as he can sit properly, take it apart, and put it back together in his stomach. He is an Engineer, after all. He always takes his time, he’s never frustrated, and he never has a bad thing to say about anybody, especially when he’s at the table.

He started out as the ring bearer for his cousin the Princess, which is where I found him, in the only photo he has before the war. His grandfather is just behind the bride, chatting with the King of Hungary, making a point even as his niece is walking down the aisle, the exact same guy as my father-in-law but with a bowler and as Secretary of State. My father-in-law is 5 years old and out in front, like the whole party is for him.

He was an only child. His father played the piano, the only person in the family to carry a tune in centuries. Consequently, he was no disappointment to his father the statesman, who loved him dearly. We have one photo of my wife’s grandfather, sitting at a piano in formal wear, spats on the pedals. A few years later he was dead, leaving my father-in-law, at 14, alone with his mother - a debutante from Philadelphia with no relatives in Italy who couldn’t even speak Neapolitan.

They lived in a big house down in Posillipo, a gift from the grandfather, who got a street named after him up in Vomero (which is bad news for my brother-in-law, who now has that name and can never go near the place, which is a shame, since there’s a good friggitoria up there). But that was before Mussolini. When that idiot showed up, the party was over, since whatever money they had left was worthless. And being the opposition in a nation of opportunists, they went from having few friends to having none, this widow and her son, just as the war was breaking out. So they lived alone in poverty and hunger, which was common in Naples, stuck in their big, cold, damp house. Then the house got bombed and they had nothing.

They found a couple of pictures, taken from their frames by the firemen, who were not begrudged. As a courtesy, the firemen left a locked armoire standing upright, undisturbed. There was little inside. My father-in-law says it’s a good thing there wasn’t anything much, since they had nowhere to go. Luckily, he was 17 and in love - another condition common in Naples.

I once got a letter from a French Viscount, who would be a Cardinal among Cardinals. It had my name on it. It was a 7 part wedding invitation on hand-made paper inscribed in purple with a cut pen. I was afraid to open it. My wife took it away like I couldn’t figure out how to turn on my phone. She looked inside and made a face like she spit out a bad cherry. My cousin, she said. Do we have to go? I asked, thinking of the pate at L'Ami Louis. Most certainly not, she said. My poor parents, though.

This invitation had nothing to do with my father-in-law. It had to do with his in-laws. I mention it because it’s where my wife grew up. I know it sounds strange, but some girls grow up that way, with Viscounts all around. The only question I had at the time was: How did they get my name?

She dropped the subject until our own wedding rolled around. Ours was at the Municipio on Capri with lunch at Paolino – the usual deal. My father-in-law paid for everything, including a dozen hotel bills. He invited more people than I expected and I was presented with a seating plan. I looked to my right. Who’s this uncle from Rome? I asked. You’ll be fine, I was told. His English is perfect. The night before, my wife tells me that this uncle was the Ambassador to France, some years ago. I ask: Why did you wait until now? She says: Because it might come up at lunch.

It didn’t. I got this perfectly charming older gentleman who gave the most beautiful toast I ever heard. He described me as someone I never met, drawing on a relationship we didn’t have, in an amazing attempt to fully impart what I had just spent about 10 seconds trying to impress upon him, but without the pretense and twice the nerve. I didn’t know who he was talking about. Then he repeated everything in English and it all made sense.

I understood that my father-in-law didn’t get along with this guy, his brother-in-law the Baron, this uncle from Rome, who never missed an opportunity to use his title, even though as Ambassador you’d have thought he earned a better one. But no, Baron it is, which is a sticking point with my father-in-law, who has steadfastly refused to call this guy Baron under any circumstances since the old Baron died, which would be about 40 years ago. Ambassador is what he calls him, which is the closest my father-in-law comes to contempt.

Like I said, my father-in-law is an Engineer, which title he is never without. It is his sword and shield. Engineers are men of action. They must do. It is not sufficient to be. And his is a generation that idolizes Engineers, which figures, since Naples was a wreck - something that tends to happen over there. Nature wrecks it slowly, unless there’s an earthquake or something. But when it’s people, fighting over all that beauty, expect a better job.

So he got himself through college and even managed to build a building before he came to his senses and began working for his father-in-law, the late, great Baron who was in need of a son with less pretension and more desire, who wanted to stay in Naples and take money from the air. Of course, it didn’t hurt that my father-in-law had the same name as the first son of the city and a father of the Democratic state, which noble idea was briefly sidetracked. Add that to the manufacture of oxygen, and you have a happy ending.

The first time I met my father-in-law was on Capri. He was in a bathing suit being served breakfast on his boat. He couldn’t have seemed more at home. Funny thing, he made me feel the same way. Believe me, I was prepared to disembark after my delivery of pasticci, but there wasn’t a bit of it. My wife had sent me down to the marina alone, with instructions to introduce myself, shake hands, and come right back with breakfast. I had already met my mother-in-law, even spent a day on the boat while my father-in-law was at the office (it was like watching my wife in 30 years, and I fell in love twice), so I knew I had a green light. But I wanted to stop, not go, and it’s been that way ever since.

The Maestro

I know some famous people - people so famous you never heard of them. I’m friendly with an artist. I don’t get what everybody is looking at, and I’m not sure they do either, but there are plenty of them in line, ready to pay for it.

Some people don’t think much of him, but they don’t know him. That’s just the way some people are around here. If you’re good at anything, fuck you. You wrote a book? You made a movie? You think you’re somebody or other? Other is more like it. If you’re a creative type around here, you better be a looser if you expect to be loved.

This guy barely has to lift a finger. It’s true that he’s driven by his ego. Who wouldn’t be? He showed me a check. It was pretty old fashioned as moments between friends go. You don’t see many checks these days. It was like a relic – and no small relic at that.

His friends say he’s too cool. They accuse him of trying too hard, especially when they’re mad at him, which is usually when they can’t get enough. Despite being so cool, he has a lot of friends. This is because he isn’t cool at all. He’s as warm as toast. That’s what’s so cool. Who doesn’t love toast?

He told me, right to my face, that he hated sandwiches. Cheesesteaks, hoagies, combos, anything called a panini. He wants his food separate, which I can understand. He has never taken one bite of any sandwich I ever made, nor set foot in here, which is not to say I never fed him. We just eat at home and I keep the meat separate.

He stays home a lot. The truth is, this guy hates people. He hates them for the same reason he loves them, which is why they love him. And hate him. I call it Radical Ambivalence, which is a clinical term. Everybody wants to go too far, including him, which never works out. It’s what put Jesus on the cross. So my friend is like a shut-in, unless he’s surrounded by people who want to crucify him.

He spends a lot of time in his studio, up near where I go. A lot of people visit him there, from all over the world. It’s a magnet for oddballs and creative types who come to see what’s going on. I went and I couldn’t figure it all out. The actual work was going on someplace else, or so he said. He tried to explain it all to me and I said: if you say so. Then we took a nap and later I barbecued some dry-curried lamb, which I served with a remoulade, grilled eggplant, and corn on the cob.

I’ve known him since we were chimps, looking for women. He still wants nothing but love, which is the first thing he admits. It has little to do with sex. He’s very smart, and he assumes the same of you. He asks questions. You can imagine why we love him. He tests your ability to apprehend his meaning, his intentions held just out of reach. Or so you think. So you reach.

He’s convinced that I actually get it. This is where he’s delusional, at least in my case. I’m not cool enough or smart enough. Plus, I’m colorblind. I can stare at something for an hour and still not have a clue where blue ends and purple begins, which in my line aren’t colors you see very much. But it seems we’re both willing to ignore what I don’t see, which is the best thing about our relationship and maybe all there is to get.

Obesity

I have a certain loved one who's put on a few pounds, and I'm not talking about me. He tells me he's losing weight. Every time I see him he looks bigger, yet he drives the conversation by talking about how many pounds he's taken off. He's usually filling up a Kaiser roll while he's telling me.

My problem is: I love to feed him. This is true for everybody I love. In fact, when someone I love wants to hurt me, they’ll simply refuse my food, which hurts. I’m not alone here. Mothers all over the world understand my pain. Yet most of them have prevailed in their struggle to overcome rejection. Take a look around.

This isn’t so true in Italy, where conceit trumps all. Don’t get me wrong. They eat like pigs. But they’ll starve themselves back into their clothes so they can attract the opposite sex as long as life allows. The vaunted Italian diet involves bouts of extreme hunger, followed by an eating binge, which contributes to the storied Italian temperament. Add their mothers and you have a stereotype.

None of this is true in my family. My mother-in-law never cooked a meal in her life, unless she was on vacation and under duress. My own mother was always hiding the food, or doling it out in rations, like when she was a child during the Depression, forced to shop and cook three courses for 20 ingrates every day. She hated food.

In my family, I’m the anomaly, even though I’m completely normal, at least according to me. My in-laws think my cooking is quaint and somewhat eccentric, as if I enjoyed ironing and was able to deliver a perfect shirt. Whenever I cook for my in-laws I get the feeling a chicken must have in the farmer’s arms, all cozy as he pets my thigh.

On my side we have a lot of eaters - like the Depression is over from one day to the next. Overeating is not the acceptance of a mother’s love, but a continuous rebellion, which can’t be very healthy. One thing is for sure - nobody is losing much weight around here. And who’s in a position to think about it when it’s time for lunch?

Ambition

A lot of people say that I'm not ambitious enough, but it’s usually my mother. All I ever wanted to do was travel, eat out, and get laid. What's wrong with that?

That was the answer I gave my old boss when he asked what I wanted. He was trying to get me to stay. I wanted to go. Where are you going? Stay, tell me what you want. Think of something.

My wife covers third, but that's none of your business. The other two involve obsession, which is not to say my wife doesn’t. The best my wife can do is to endure the rest, like a date at the Star Trek convention.

My boss offered to send me to Florida, get me some hookers, that kind of thing. He asked me home, so his wife could cook. It didn’t sound good to me. I was thinking of London. I was curious to try the fish and chips, maybe meet some English girls. That was 40 years ago. So far, I have no complaints.

I saw the gates of Babylon. Sure, I was in Berlin, but they were the gates of Babylon just the same. Some German platoon marched in, took them down, and marched out. Add that to six million Jews, and you know you're standing where you can’t imagine. The world starts to look pretty small. But if you have a dollar in your pocket, you can be in Rome in time for dinner. Rome they couldn’t take home. It can’t be deconstructed in a day.

I just had pizza in Naples at a place named after an ancient Roman senator. If this guy knew how long he would be remembered, he’d be as pleased as pie. They have his picture etched in glass. The place is a temple, and I pray there every time I’m in town. I was having lunch with an old friend whose ancestor was famous for being assassinated, back in the Renaissance, which he talks about like it was yesterday and he’s still sore about it.

We remembered our fathers, both dead since the last time we sat down. By the time our lunch arrived, it was like two thousand years had passed, which the waiter assured us was the age of the building’s foundation, including the stones heating the oven, which never goes cold. There, I got the feeling that time didn’t count for much either, unless you’re talking about how long it takes to make a pizza.

It’s not easy, having goals in life. But if you just keep it simple, you’d be surprised where you end up. The good thing about traveling, eating out, and getting laid is that you always have something to look forward to. Not everybody gets a sandwich named after them, like Mr. Reuben, but if you’re motivated, you can eat the whole thing while it's still warm.

Pizza Party

I know a guy who’s always having conversations with me to which I’m not privy. He comes in here ready for an argument. He’s already decided what I’m going to say, and he wants me to know that he’s all ready for me, pre-pissed. I think he actually hears voices. Thank God for cell phones. Now he can talk all he wants and seem normal.

This guy is a genius. He works alone. The guy sits in his underwear all day, every day, at his computer. He does all right, moneywise. But he thinks he actually works with people. He thinks he has them all figured out. It’s no wonder he’s crazy. That’s the thing with these guys - they’re socializing without pants.

I invited him out with some girls who work for my cousin, who would rather drive 40 miles for a pizza than eat the pizza my cousin makes, which has a thick crust and government cheese, which my cousin uses because the people like it. And let me tell you, with fresh tomatoes and hot pepper, it’s a winning formula.

My cousin loves pizza, which he doesn’t trust himself to make properly. And he would be foolish to try, since anything that might interrupt the flow of people lining up for what he does make would be foolish indeed. So we go out for pizza a lot.

We drive halfway to Atlantic City and this computer guy is chatting-up the girls like Frank Sinatra. I’m so glad for him. Real girls, very cute, heading out in my cousin’s van, which seats 11 pretty comfortably, 12 if you’re cozy, which we were. And don’t worry - my wife was there.

This guy is talking constantly about computers, smart phones, Pods, Pads, reading devices, the whole 21st century picture, as it were. And he tries to do it with a certain flair, like it’s all witty and fascinating. Once he started to predict the future, the girls’ eyes started to glaze over - and we’re still on the Blackhorse Pike. I thought to myself: this poor bastard is never going to get laid.

When Dancing With The Stars was raised as a subject, he dismissed it out of hand as an unworthy topic. By the time the pizza arrived, the only person left to talk to him was my cousin, who doesn’t have a computer but who is always very nice, especially with the elderly and the disabled. Which is not to say that this guy can’t be rehabilitated into society. He just has to get out more.

Rage

When my sister died, she fought for her life. And I mean fought. I saw in my sister an anger that had never existed. All you wanted to get was out of her way. And who could blame her? She had a good life, the life she wanted - the life she not only dreamed about but was enjoying in full. No wonder she was livid.

They diagnosed her by surprise, on the day she picked out her wedding invitations. She went to the stationer’s in the morning, but called him back to cancel the order after she went to the doctor. Her fiancé had to pay extra, a few weeks later, having spent the interim begging her to marry him all over again, which she did, in the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever been to, up in Merion, just as the leaves were turning. A year later she was dead. This was the longest year of my life up until that time. For my sister, it was the shortest.

I was generally spared her anger - and we were like twins, which is what everybody thought, since we were joined at the hip. My mother, she got plenty. I got the best, along with my brother-in-law, who she never stopped loving for one minute. In fact, she died in his arms on my father’s birthday. I happened not to be there for the cake, as usual, which they were eating in the living room, my sister having been sent home, her last round of chemo a complete failure. She was in her robe, as beautiful as a woman could be, when she put her cake down on the coffee table. I don’t think I’ll be finishing this, she said.

She didn’t have to say it to me. I was never sorry not to be there, to sing Happy Birthday to my father, who wasn’t happy at all. I knew she wouldn’t be finishing something or other, and I had no intention of ever saying goodbye, because she didn’t either, which is how we left it.

You’re living right up until the moment you’re not, which means the same thing if you’re dying a slow and painful death or if you’re hit by a bus. The slow and painful part can get you pissed off. We know we’re dying and we’re not happy about it, despite the morphine. Or even despite the fact that we’re 90 years old. We should we be living, since living is all we know.

I heard somebody say that it’s important to suffer; otherwise you don’t know you want to die. I’m not sure that’s true, unless you’re talking suicide, which, as it involves suffering, usually comes in the form of not living very well. Basically, you never want to die. The only thing you can say about suffering is that it is proof of life, and being angry about it demonstrates the fact.

Jimmy Leg

There’s always room at the top - but only if you’re an alien. Natives need not apply. As an alien it’s strictly: take me to your leader. Me, I’m always an alien. Except over here, of course. I’m frying onions over here, and it stinks - if you don’t mind my saying. But onions I must fry, and there’s nothing alien in that. It brings in the money.

My friend Jimmy lives in a sea of money - potassium sorbate to be exact, which they need a lot of in China. I only know him because I’m a guy who speaks Italian on more or less the same level as Jimmy, which isn’t very high. I saw him last week in Hong Kong. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a $4000 pair of shoes, but Jimmy was wearing them. You could see that they were English, because they looked like boats.

Jimmy likes boats. He’s got an 80 million dollar yacht, or it was before he hung the art and installed a grand piano in the salon. The tender alone is 15 meters, which is about the size of the crew, considering what you get in the way of sailors out by China, where they come pretty cheap. I’m sure they sleep like rats below decks, but fat rats at that. Up in the wheelhouse he has Vikings, complete with beards.

We became friends the first time we met, which was an entirely serendipitous moment in the port of Capri, where I often happen to be. We shook hands at the café and he asked me aboard. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find myself on a boat like that often enough. So it was hard to hide my enthusiasm.

Some guests on a boat like this tend to act like they have a similar one of their own, but for some strange reason they're on this one. Others act like they’re just waiting until their ship comes in, so they’re stopping over while they kill some time. A few seem to enjoy themselves a little too much. As for me, I’m the guy nobody knows, but one thing is for sure. I don’t have a boat like this and there’s no way I’m ever going to get one. I’m just happy to be on deck.

So my new friend and me go crawling all over his yacht - up and down, fore and aft, bridge, heads, and galleys. How can you not admire a perfectly beveled custom mirror with a ¼ in. reveal, set in chrome? I went nuts. And Jimmy, he loved it. Nobody ever went nuts. They just acted as if they had a mirror like that too.

Now we’re pals, so I stopped over to see him in Hong Kong on my way back from Hangzhou, where I was introducing a friend from Parma to some very interesting pig farmers, and I met him at The Jockey Club.

Jimmy has a box at The Jockey Club, which is a lot like his boat, which is to say it’s bigger than my house. But it’s got to be much more expensive, since unlike the boat, The Jockey Club isn’t going anywhere. There’s only so much racetrack to go around in Happy Valley.

I saw that the track was perfect for him, since he never stops running. In fact, whenever he’s there, he’s never in his box, unless he has money on a horse, which is rare. Jimmy doesn’t like to gamble. Money, he doesn’t waste. Money, he spends. But don’t think he isn’t tight with a buck. He’s like a dog chasing a rabbit. Once he gets it, he won’t let go, unless you offer him another rabbit.

He’s a club Steward, which in his case means handing out trophies and shaking the jockey’s hand in the winner’s circle, which he considers a chore. But it does give him a chance to actually run on the track, which he did the night I was there. He was standing next to me one minute, sipping dolcetto high over the field of dreams, and the next minute I see him down on the track, running. Up on the jumbotron comes his face, 50 feet tall. They hand him a trophy and he hands it off to a jockey, who’s bigger than Jimmy. The whole thing took a minute, and then came the flashbulbs. Suddenly, he’s standing next to me again, like he just went to the bathroom.

He’s been over here a half dozen times and I’m not ashamed of it. I never know when he’ll show up. He runs in like this is a crime scene and he’s EMS, but with a limo. He sees me behind the grill and watches me work. He makes me proud of it because it seems to calm him down. And he knows one thing for sure. He won’t be paying for a sandwich. So I turn out to be a good deal. As for me, I love to watch him work - chasing money all over the place and figuring out how to spend it. But once you get a look at him, it’s clear that Jimmy is an all time champion. Cheer is all you can do.

What’s he got that you haven’t got? The shoes, for one thing. But in his case, he needs them. And what do I have that interests him so much, beside chicken cutlets? Beats me. All I’ve got is appreciation, which is maybe what all that money is about. I don’t hold it against him. I feel the opposite, since I was taught as a child that to be rich is glorious, which is what they teach over there.

The Godfather II

No one wants to kill you more than the guy you made. That’s the most common bit of wisdom you’ll hear around the clubhouse. The guy who says it may be playing cards with you. Or he may be changing his socks. But the moment you hear it, you know that your loyalty is being tested, which is very uncomfortable.

I never say it. I just know it. And it never fails to amaze me how true it is. So why state the obvious? You just act on it. If the guy you made is smart enough, he’ll say it to you, and show that he loves you enough to admit it. But if he’s an idiot, and overhears it, he’ll act like he dropped a quarter.

The real advice is: never get made. Make all you want, but let no one make you. It’s the maker, not the made, who decides. That’s why they want to kill you, because they want to have it their way.

Part one, I learned from my mother. I think she saw it in my eyes the first time she beat the shit out of me, something that defined our relationship for a while. The second part came from my Godfather. He told me over a Big Mac, among the first served in the greater Philadelphia area on the day it was introduced in 1967.

We’d driven to Conshohocken with my very beautiful cousin from Modesto, California, who had been sent back east to live with Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary, attend St. Maria Goretti High School for Girls and wear a uniform 2500 miles from home, due to some sexual hi-jinks in that profligate State.

I was determined to seem as cool as anybody from California. We all were, which explained the two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun, with more clothes. I was in an all boys’ school, though I had just given up my uniform. I could wear jeans and a T-shirt because I was up at Central, where all the brainiacs went, which was Uncle Joe’s alma mater. It was public and it was free. We had a cyclotron built by the students in the basement and my Godfather had his name on the Honor Roll and in the trophy case.

I wouldn’t be getting my name writ in either of those places, but all I knew at the time was that if I could be anything like my Godfather, which on this particular evening included a pleasant drive through the leafy suburbs, my first ever trip to McDonalds, and the chance to sit with the most beautiful girl I ever saw, who was even less inclined to cover-up since we were cousins, then I’d be doing all right.

When he told me: never get made, he was referring to the Big Mac. But I apprehended the broader meaning – about which he was not coy. Where’s the joy in it? What of creativity? Who can possibly be interested in eating anything that can be endlessly replicated? he asked. As rhetorical questions go, it went, but I always stuck with my Godfather’s point of view, and it’s served over a million customers.

Perfect Boiled Eggs

For some people, the party they didn’t pick is the party they worry about. For me it’s the opposite. The way I figure it, the only party I can enjoy is the party where I happen to be, so why worry about any other? Call me an ego-manic, but I am the party.

This idea is based on the you’re born alone, you live alone, you die alone theory, which I was obliged to subscribe to during an Al-anon meeting all about Step Three, surrendering to your Higher Power, which is something that always seems to come up with those people. My wife made me go. They hand you an egg timer and you start talking. I quoted Harold Pinter. You could have heard a pin drop.

But I had three minutes left, and I spotted a few customers in the room. So I moved right into the God is love part, which follows perfectly. I expressed love as my hope and salvation, the route to grace, the antidote to hell, and the only proof of God. Hell is the state into which you are born, which is alone, which is also the way you die.

It’s the living you must endure, your own private eternity where, whether you like it or not, you live every day in the present. Alone. For some people it’s purgatory - caught not in hell, hating everybody, yet with paradise just out of reach. They can see the love, they just can’t get any.

Now we all know that love stinks, but that’s only unless you forget to fuck sex. Like my mother said when I got divorced, if you think it’s about sex, think again, buddy. I’m talking about loving the people in the room, any room, which can only be the room you happen to be in, even if it’s just you, which is where the party begins.

It’s easy. To love these people is to listen to them. Everybody else at the meeting gets four minutes too, and you’d be amazed at what they have to say. How could you not love them? So I wrapped it up with some sand left in my timer. But if you want a perfect boiled egg, you should take it out early and let it sit for a minute.

La Dolce Vita

I got married on Capri, which doesn’t sound too bad. Nobody from my family was there. In fact, I was barely there myself. Our anniversary? You tell me.

I don’t put much store in weddings, funerals, and the like. I haven’t remembered anybody’s birthday since I was born. As for my own, I wouldn’t know it if they didn’t hand me a cake. You’d think that somebody with my capacity for numbers wouldn’t have a hole in his brain where events are supposed to be, but there it is. I call it a defense mechanism.

I was just in Naples for my father-in-law’s 85th birthday. He looks great, as dapper as ever, though I wish he’d wear some kind of diaper, since elegance wears thin if you can’t hold it in. And my poor mother-in-law is a wreck, with new hips, knees, and elbows all screwed into the tiniest bits of living bone – all out of alignment and ready to collapse. What’s amazing, though, is how she brings it off, how dignified she is, and how beautiful. What she reveals is nothing, which is a miracle of upbringing. Because you have to remember: likewise incontinent, she’s also somewhat crazy, which seems to run in good families.

Everybody says my father-in-law is in denial. Like, he refuses to get my mother-in-law a wheelchair. A wheelchair doesn’t look seemly, as if needing three people to get her from the car into the restaurant looks better. On Capri, we have what looks like a dining room chair with tiny little wheels, which takes two people to navigate and remains the only concession my father-in-law is willing to make towards the law of gravity.

All during the weekend he was worried about his boat, which he has every intention of using this summer, and which thought strikes terror in the heart of anyone obliged to join him, like me. We’re all convinced that my mother-in-law will die on that boat, one broken joint over her limit, while trying to obey my father-in-law’s command to jump, something she will never do again, so that they might board another yacht and join some friends for lunch.

I saw L’avventura recently, without subtitles. You don’t need subtitles either. I imagined the cast in 60 years, like the world’s longest running reality show, and there I am - still watching. Who wouldn’t? I still don’t know what those people are looking for, but trying to find it is compelling as ever. As for the girl who got lost, I guess married her.

So far, my wife seems perfectly sane. Then again, so did her mother when we got married. My wife’s brother, on the other hand, is ready for a straight jacket. This guy looks like a movie star except now he’s back at home, wandering all over the house in his underwear like a ghost who eats, which turns out to be not very attractive.

My brother-in-law was married to a perfect gold-digger - tits, legs, everything. She didn’t realize how crazy he was until it was too late. She also thought he had money, which he most certainly does not. Now she exists only by phone, hounding the poor wretch for dough. He’s 57 and still bumming cigarettes, unable to afford his own, as he sends every Euro his father gives him to this woman. When asked about his son, my father-in-law always says that everything is fine. All is normal. If you consider that certain families have crazy people and gold-diggers, I guess it is.

My father-in-law’s best friend just died, which cast a pall over the birthday festivities. This best friend was best by default, the latest in a line of dominoes that have been falling over lately. My father-in-law hadn’t seen the widow since the funeral, so my wife and I insisted that we take her out to dinner, which we did the night before the party.

The widow is an English Lady who fell in love long ago with a gorgeous Italian who had the sweetest boat in the darsena. She left her husband and children to do it, but it always seemed well worth the trouble. Now that he's dead, for the first time in 40 years, she’s a stranger in a strange land. Don’t get me wrong - her Italian is perfect. She just isn’t Italian.

This lady accuses everyone she meets of ulterior motives, which is entirely justified in Naples. But in her case, it’s to disavow the truth of her own life. Every time a stranger appears on the scene she suspects them, as if by doing so she can level the field, hurt as she was hurt, judge as she was judged. I got the treatment, believe me, and not from anybody but her. Still, I won her over once it was apparent that I was able to pick up the check once in awhile. Besides, she gets to speak in English with me, like someone gasping for air.

My father-in-law managed to get through three courses without mentioning the deceased’s name. This guy was the life of the party, and it didn’t matter that his absence was like a gaping hole in the floor. To mention his name would be to acknowledge his demise, which is something my father-in-law is not prepared to do.

As for the English Lady, she’s all alone, poor thing. With her husband dead, she has only herself to consider. She has to finish living the dream, alone among the company she chose to keep, hanging on as long as possible, which is what everybody else seems to be doing over there.

Tempting Fate

Anytime we talk business, I want it to feel like The Rapture – on the one hand, you’re really looking forward to it. On the other, you’re scared shitless. This is something religion offers – a reckoning, a time and a place where your fate is sealed according to that which was under your control.

Keep waiting. That’s what I said to a girl who asked for a raise. She called me into the back room. She told me what she was worth and I said she was not in a position to discuss the subject since she was, by her own admission, mathematically challenged. I could only promise to consider it. Now this girl is in purgatory and she’s not even sure which way she’s headed.

Some guy made me an offer. I didn’t ask for an offer. I was busy minding my own business. But once the offer was on the table, he was on the hook. I said no. Now he hates be because I sent him away. And I never asked to see him in the first place.

Usually, the best thing to do is nothing, like the smartest answer is: I don’t know. Just sit down, shut up, and eat. If you’re lucky, you’ll finish without having to decide anything but what’s for dessert.

Connected

Life is a carousel - on or off, you’re standing still. All his life, my grandfather wanted to be somewhere else, which is why he ran away from Marsico in the first place. But he was doomed to suffer a village, which grew around him like a fungus. No matter how much the people loved him, and they all loved him, he longed to be gone, which he never was, because he wanted to be with Rose, which made running away impossible.

Everybody loved Rose, who came with a crowd. As her daughters went looking to find their father, the bridegrooms discovered the mother. One look was all it took. I don’t want to call my grandmother a fox, but you should see the pictures. Believe me - no Rose, no Carmine the Barber.

Rose was from Caronia, next to Cefalu, and when my grandfather married her it was like a form of citizenship. It also guaranteed a steady stream of customers, since people from Sicily tend to stick together - like Masons but with no choice.

Carmine met Rose the day they were engaged, though he had nothing to do with it. He was washing his face at a communal faucet behind his flop on Catherine St. when the most beautiful girl in the world handed him a clean towel. Looking past her, he noticed she was with a large group of serious people, arms folded, waiting to see what he would do. Face dripping wet, he looked at the girl again. He took the towel.

Ten years after my grandfather wiped his face, my mother was born, the youngest of eight - two boys followed by six girls. Rose didn’t waste a minute after that, assigning motherhood to her eldest daughter, which duties were then passed on down the line for the next ten years, by which time my mother was cooking, standing on a stool.

With all those kids to clothe, my grandmother opened the tailor shop. Naturally, this tailor shop became very successful, even though receivables were through the roof. But Rose put people to work when there was no work, and that was the thing. She also saw them dressed. Between my grandmother and my grandfather, the standards of grooming were secure.

After they bought the candy store, people had a good reason to spend time at the four corners, eating an ice cream with a fresh haircut and swell duds, listening to FDR or Benny Goodman, hoping for a minute with one of my aunts, who shed beauty across the range of pubescence and who were constantly cutting across the intersection. And radiating in all directions was Rose’s family – from platoon to division, like a regular army.

Sicilians are always looking for authority, which they abhor in any formal sense. It’s a paradox which resulted in a conflicted man, and he wasn’t even Sicilian. My grandfather had no family. He was a country boy from up in the shin - a runaway, which made him perfect because he had no grudges, no dark chapters, no history. He was the guy who everybody thought was fair, a man with nothing at stake, driven by love; who would listen to your problems and offer a bit of advice – advice you would do well to follow. As for giving that advice, he just couldn’t help himself.

And he discovered that no matter how far he ran, he would end up in the same place. The Greeks might call this a tragedy, which it isn’t, even though everybody dies in the end. In fact, my grandfather died laughing. He fell over at the dinner table, in the general uproar over a good joke. I always wished that I knew that joke, but then I’d never forget it, which is what should happen with a good joke.

Symbiosis

You never met my partner. I call him my boss. It’s something we both need. I can’t do shit without somebody to answer to, and he needs to feel like he can ask me anything. Luckily, he never pays any attention to the answers. I guess you’d call him a silent partner, since you never met him, and you’re no stranger around here. He’s usually out of town, which explains any silence.

He loves an argument. He told me I keep all the secrets, and that he has to ask too many questions to fully understand the situation. He finds this frustrating. I tell him there are no secrets. Ask me anything. Why don’t you just tell me? he asks. Tell you what? Everything. But I don’t have time to tell you everything. There are a thousand things, and you want to have an argument about every single one of them. If I stopped and told you everything, we wouldn’t get a sandwich out the door. But you get to make all the decisions, he says. This gets me angry. We’re spinning plates here. There are few decisions to be made, the answers always self evident, and every one forgotten in the urge to perfection.

Why don’t you give me a compliment sometime? I ask. Look at the balance sheet. The next time you’re in Chicago, ask anybody where to eat around here. Tell me what they say. Or call down the street and ask about our service. Why not just buy a round of drinks and give yourself a pat on the back? And while you’re at it, I’ll take one too.

He tells me he’s not comfortable giving compliments; it’s not the way he was raised. So what? I ask. Just because you were deprived of compliments as a child, we all have to suffer? Talk is cheap. Try lying. Stand in front of the mirror and make pretend you’re giving someone a compliment. You can practice on me, I won’t mind.

Even though he’s always fighting with me, fighting with me makes him very sad. He asks if I want him to leave, since he makes it perfectly clear that I am essential and he is not. This is by no means true, since neither one of us would do shit without the other. We’re both trying to get what we can’t have from people who are incapable of giving it in the first place. This is a formula for success, given the right parameters.

We’ve been working together for 25 years. He held the lease on this place, but never lived around here. He’s much more comfortable in center city, whenever he’s in town. This corner wasn’t doing so well when we met, but that changed. And we have no regrets. Quite the contrary. After our last argument, I told him that I love him, which is certainly true. He couldn’t say it back, which makes it perfect.

A Week in the Country

I know a girl who knows very well the wages of sin. She’s my bookkeeper. Early in life, she was surrounded by some seriously bad shit. She saw it with her own eyes, lived it every minute. If I told you how she lost her father (and how she found him), your eyes would bug out of your head. Then you’d cry a river. I did. But that’s not why I hired her. I hired her because she’s honest.

The choices this girl made weren’t based on theory, but fact. Most people are spared the facts. They have a system in place, good vs. evil, which serves them pretty well. They could live five times and not see the shit some people see before puberty. But they’re led to the same place, sooner or later. And it doesn’t matter if you draw the lesson from your father’s golf schedule or the number of tricks your mother turned in a night.

I told my sons not to get me wrong when I say that paradise is here and now. All the same rules apply, the golden rule being first. In paradise they don’t cotton to lying, cheating, and stealing. Selfishness they abhor. In paradise, there are no secrets. And one thing you can certainly count on, you don’t get in if you’re stoned. You’re in no shape to appreciate it, so the door is locked.

This is all in keeping with my religious belief, what AA calls my higher power, which is something I was forced to articulate last week at a five day retreat for people like me, sort of. I went to this place we called The Palace of Tears, Kleenex Castle, The Heartbreak Hotel, and a few other things, which is a shrink tank up in the mountains affiliated with my stepson’s rehab place. I loved it. It was a great deal. Five years of group therapy packed into a week.

It was like they took ten people off the subway, if everybody on the subway was white and relatively affluent, and kept them together for 18 hours a day. This was the hardest part for me. I’d have been much more comfortable with black people, Asians, or a Sikh and some Mexicans. But we were all from the same tribe of God fearing Christians, if not Jews, and we were all post grads.

So there was all my shit, on the table, with ten people to feast on it. (I’m sorry. Did you want mayo?) I made it clear from the beginning that I wasn’t going to play around with my grief. I wasn’t going to call it three pillows covered in a shroud, like a plush coffin, which we sat around in our socks, with drawings we made in crayon. And I wasn’t going to call it anger, and beat a large foam cube with a bat. I did, however, take that opportunity to imagine my stepson as a foam cube. I went last, as everybody was being asked to express their anger in turn. I gave that bag such a beating that you could call it a grand finale. My group was too scared to cry. They were too busy being scared.

But when we weren’t doing that stuff, we were talking to each other, about each other, with touchy topics and rules of engagement. So many confidentiality agreements were in place that ‘I dare you’ was a done deal going in, but I can tell you this: I have no interest in repeating any of it. Because if there’s one lesson I learned up there, it’s that we’re all the same. You aren’t a special case. You’re only one of many, any. I realized that I wasn’t Gregory Peck in The Omen. It was Village of The Damned.

So you appeal to your higher power. They make you name it. Look at me. I walked out on my sister’s funeral, turned my back to the altar. My son got Buddhists, my Dad an honor guard - since he was still covered as a Vet, proud to get a free funeral. So the only thing I could think to say to these people was: God is love. In paradise, love rules. Because you know what? I fell in love with those strangers, and believe me, you don’t know strange. I was there. So listen: I didn’t put the mayo. You don’t need it. I put a little oil and a splash of vinegar, which is not only good; it’s good for you.

Best Friends

I lost my best friend, twice. The first time I lost him was when he died. The second time started after the funeral and hasn’t stopped since.

He was a popular guy, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him. He could barely speak. And when he did, you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He was what you would call an impresario, a man of ideas, more artist than entrepreneur. Yet he was compelled by the mundane, which terrified him, because he was always broke.

I never took a penny from him. And to be fair, he never took one from me. We had a barter agreement. That’s what I call it, anyway. I’m not sure what he still owes, but I figure that we must be even. What he gave just cost more.

After he died, he finally became successful. When he was alive, he was incapable of quoting a price. He would run his finger around his collar, scratch the back of his neck, readjust his hat, clear his throat, light a cigarette. And by the time he got around to saying the number, it had a question mark - like he was asking you instead of telling you. Nobody in their right mind wanted to write him a check. But once he was dead, he had other people quoting prices. And they weren’t as bashful.

I never knew when my bell would ring, but it was usually a major holiday, which for me is always quiet. He would walk in and sit down like he was me – tired, wanting a little peace and quiet, maybe something to eat. Both of my wives loved him. So did my mother. My kids. Other times I would be in my underwear and the phone would ring. He was hungry. He needed to talk. There was a problem, usually with a girl. The idea that I wouldn’t put on my pants and turn on the grill never occurred to him. Me neither.

When he finally fell in love, we were all so happy. The girlfriend started to show up by his side on the odd evenings and major holidays, and she was one of the family. You rarely see people in love like that. And then she died. He was heartbroken, and began to show up at my house a lot more. And then he got sick, made himself sick, and he died too. The girlfriend got the mourners rolling, so he went out on a wave.

When he died they set on him like Greeks. He was suddenly the most popular guy in the world – think Van Gogh but with no paint. Or Jesus Christ – all legacy, few facts. The way they cried at the funeral made me wonder who the fuck all these people were. Where were they when he couldn’t get laid?

Now, everybody acts like his best friend. They share stories. One girl, who never slept with him despite what she’d like you to think, waved me away and said not to tell her a single thing about him, because she knew. What she didn’t know was that I distinctly remembered him telling me: I hate that fucking girl. She makes me sick and I want her out of my sight. Since he was dead, I guess he got his wish. So I didn’t say anything.

I feel robbed, and what’s worse, it’s hard to let go. I can’t even confess to missing him without the first person hearing it saying: me too. You too? You didn’t even know the fucking guy, and that goes for most people.

The Farmer’s Wife

I tell people: pick from the bottom. The best should always come at the end, unless it’s track and field, in which case, you better not eat here. You should run into center city and take your chances.

I know a guy in Austria, a regular Nazi. Don’t get me wrong; he’s the nicest guy in the world. But if you get around to the Holocaust, you get the idea that he doesn’t think it was such a big deal. A lot of people died, all over Europe. I pursued the subject and I found out that he thinks the Jews somehow brought it upon themselves. So I think the conversation might seriously go awry, and so does he, so we were somehow off the subject before it got too weird. But then I thought; should I kill this guy?

The thing is, there was some business at hand. He’s got the pancetta I want, and I seriously want to tell him to run it back up the pig’s ass. But he’s like schlag, and I never get the chance. So I only bought half the bacon I came for, but that was a mistake. You never tasted pancetta like this. I confess I went back for more.

The next time I went, it was like he had something to prove. Far up in the mountains we met, at his gasthaus, where I have to admit, it was beautiful. I know Switzerland, and in the high Alps where the Italians meet the Austrians, there’s a lot of eating to be done in valleys so beautiful they make you want to scale the peaks, where there are even more restaurants, which serve canederli from God, so you have to go.

I realize that this guy is convinced that because I’m Italian we have something in common besides our love of pork. Naturally, that would be Fascism. What he doesn’t know is that I’m from Sicily and we don’t like Fascists. We can barely tolerate Democracy. So again, I’m thinking I should kill him, but his wife is a doll, his kids are gorgeous, and to tell you the truth, the guy looks exactly like me - but with lederhosen.

I remembered a time when I went back to Marsico, which is just like Sicily, only worse. It’s way up in the mountains in the shinbone of Lucania, where my mother's father was born. I was the first person from here to set foot there for over 100 years. It was like I never left. After a day of seeing my face on people all over town, I stopped to see the house from which my grandfather ran away – on a very sweet patch down in the valley.

I crossed the road and went into a bar. I was relieved to get out of town. I said to the barman that I was from here, though I didn’t have to tell him. Just look at me. Where? he asked. I jerked my thumb across the road. Marsico, I said. That house, right there. That’s not here, he answered.

So I thought that maybe I should just fuck the Nazi’s wife, which wouldn’t have been any big deal. He definitely had a peephole. And the wife was something else. Very fuckable. But she looked exactly like my sister. And besides, I don’t do that kind of thing. I wanted to punish the guy, not reward him. Even though it wouldn’t have mattered if I got her pregnant. The little bastard would fit right in. Then I’d have a Nazi in my family, which is all I need.

The Godfather

Everybody gets two. The first one they give you when you’re born, so he doesn’t count. The second one you pick for yourself, when you’re Confirmed, which is puberty by any other name. I picked my Uncle Joe, who was the Chief Engineer of the Polaris, which was the last big project down at the Navy Yard. He had a solid gold tie clip in the shape of a nuclear submarine.

Uncle Joe graduated Drexel in 1941 and spent the war in uniform making mechanical drawings and hitting on my mother’s sister. After they bombed Hiroshima, he signed on down at the Navy Yard because my aunt finally said yes and she had no intention of leaving the parish.

Like all of my mother’s sisters, my aunt married my uncle because he reminded her of her father. In Joe’s case, he had a lot going for him. First, he was named Joe, which half the other brothers–in-law were named, including my dad. Second, he was very handsome. After that, he was a brainiac - left and right. Not only could he trace a circuit through a million switches, he was also a man of culture. He had a thousand books. I had none.

On the day before my Confirmation he told me to bring the wagon I used for delivering newspapers over to his house, which he filled with books - so many, I had to tie them in - beautiful things, bound in leather, embossed in gold, all well read and precious upon arrival. I had a library from one minute to the next. Tom Brown’s School Days, The Pickwick Papers, Germinal. It was like somebody gave me a super power, a fortress of solitude, a world in which to live. However my mother beat the shit out of me, however bullied at school and trapped like a rat below Snyder Avenue, there was always something worse happening in London. And the endings weren’t bad. Even if they were, at least they ended.

Sitting on the steps with the other kids, who were comparing the Dave Clark Five to Herman’s Hermits, I wanted to talk about Kafka. This didn’t go over too well at first but after awhile, the girls started to think it was cute. But that was only half the battle. The boys really wanted to kill me. A few of them nearly got away with it. One kid broke my tooth after I quoted Somerset Maugham. A reference to Ethan Frome once got me kicked in the nuts. But no matter the provocation, I got no quarter from my brother, whose idea of a good book included most anything from Classics Illustrated and who wanted to kill me more than anybody else.

You would think it was impossible to bully me at school. You couldn’t walk through the schoolyard without seeing one cousin or another. Every third kid was bound by blood, and any one of them would have leaped to my defense but for my brother. In fact, whenever somebody had me down on the ground, beating my face, my brother would stand guard, waving my cousins away. They’re just playing, he would say.

I took the problem to my Godfather, who presented me with the problem in the first place. I went there to give him our portrait on the church steps - me in my white suit, he with his tie clip, taken with my brother’s box camera. Uncle Joe laughed out loud and made me tell him all the bullies by name. When I told him about Armando Battalotta, he said that no one would believe it. I moved on to Angelo DellaMorte. Enough, he shouted. Then he handed me another pile of books and sent me home.

Teamwork

Ideas come with no charge, like rain. Or think dirt. It isn’t worth shit until you have a stick. A girl says to me: Let’s get a website. She thinks she has an idea, like - let’s get a phone –I hear you can talk to people without having to look at their face. I have an idea too. Let’s go to LA just by scratching your ass. I have another idea. Why don’t you get on your bike and go make some deliveries.

I stopped in at the Rectory, where they have this preening ass who just got there. He hasn’t a clue why we never get a parking ticket, why the streets get plowed first, or why the church got re-built after the fire. We had over ten million in cash before the firemen shut the plugs, and that was over 40 years ago. But this guy thinks all the answers are back in Minneapolis, and we’ve just been waiting a hundred years for him to get here.

He told me he replanted the garden. I told him to go fuck himself, because I know who replanted the garden. I sent over some sandwiches, which means I did more to re-plant the garden than that sorry son of a bitch, and all I did was put a little meat on some bread for the poor bastards who did all the work. And believe me, without Sister Mary Martin, God only knows what it would look like. Yet this toupee had the guts to take the credit. Naturally, when I told him to go fuck himself, he was at a loss for words. So I managed to add that ‘we’ I can accept, being as he says Mass. But this ‘I’ bullshit is just that, Father.